The DA’s office today said that DNA tests prove that Henry Jay Bell was rightfully convicted of capital murder in 1993. He is serving a life sentence.

“The results of Henry Bell’s post-conviction DNA test reaffirm that he was guilty 15 years ago and he’s guilty today for capital murder,” Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said in a press release. “There are people who have a misperception that this administration is preoccupied with freeing the innocent and while that is important, people need to understand that we are also using advances in DNA technology to ensure we have the right person behind bars.”

Testing was done of blood on Mr. Bell’s knife.

According to the press release:

“On April 18, 1993, Mr. Bell drove the victim, a neighborhood acquaintance he had known for approximately 20 years, to a vacant field in Garland where he stabbed the victim to death during the course of sexual assault inside of his wife’s car.
At the time of trial, Bell who pleaded not guilty, testified that he had paid the victim for consensual sex two days prior to the offense. According to witnesses, the victim was seen entering the passenger side of Bell’s car in the early morning hours on the date of the offense, and moments later the car was seen parked in a vacant lot where it began rocking and there were sounds of a struggle coming from the car. Another witness who had met Bell one month before the offense testified that Bell had previously driven her to the exact same wooded area to have sex where the murder victim’s body was found.”

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